...... to be fed up with the amount of homework my 7YO gets?

[fedupfrida]

My Year 3 child gets what i think is a LOT of homework and it's starting to cause more and more family stress, especially at weekends.

It doesn't help that she hates doing homework and would rather be playing (which 7YO wouldn't?) but here's a list for a normal week;

Times tables,
2 or 3 pages from a Maths workbook,
10 spellings
2 (yes 2) book reviews per week,
Literacy/Science homework (usually a piece of writing, reading comp etc)
Reading every night.

How much does your Y3 child get and am i BU to be fed up of the sheer amount of time it takes and eats into our precious family time at weekends?

In theory pengwn but if they’ve already been taught how to do it and they know how, they don’t need to do it at home, and if they don’t know how to do it they need a teacher.

It’s all a bit joyless and miserable, anyway. I hated it.

@Pengggwn ... county primary. No one in this city (Liverpool) has ever called them state primary afaik. How odd.

We got a reading log our parents had to sign. No other homework until Comprehensive/seniors and even then that wasn't excessive. That was in the early 90's - early 00's.

That’s a ridiculous amount of homework. My 7 year old gets spelling once a week and they’re encouraged to read for 15 minutes a night on an app so that the teacher can track their progress. Other than that she has a science project usually once a term but that’s it. And she’s tired at this stage in the term as it is. I can’t imagine adding in more enforced learning after school.

I’ve heard county primary too. Not recently though.

You don’t need to be doing them several times a day though, Pengwn

DDs school is in a disadvantaged area with a higher than average level of SEND so her homework probably differs from those that live in a grammar school area.

My year 3 gets one sheet of homework a week with 1/2 the page on what they have been doing in numeracy that week and the other on literacy.

The school stopped doing spelling tests a few years ago as those that practised or were good readers got 10/10 and those that didnt or had SEN didnt and it lowered morale and esteem of those that struggled. They have a list of words in their planner that they are expected to be able to know/spell by year 4, so I make sure DD knows those ones.

The school recommend reading 10 minutes a night and send a note home at the beginning of term of what timetables they are concentrating on and a reminder just before the 1/2 termly timestable test.

Ideally, reading should just be done for fun. I’ve no issue with a school recommending to parents they read with their child, suggesting books and offering things like (say) competitions and games to get them involved, that’s all nice and positive. I do roll my eyes st 5 year olds getting ‘homework.’

Which they can do in school.

I'm a year 3 teacher . It's far too much homework.
My kids have to do one piece a week maximum of half an hour. Ten spellings and times tables. Reading 5-10 minutes per night.
Research shows that homework doesn't benefit children's learning. Therefore we are looking at reducing it.

Spellings are pointless. It is worth practising times tables at home though. It's that kind of rote learning that we don't have time for at school.

You do know I’m not one of your students, pengwn,don’t you?

I don't believe a teaching qualification is needed to oversee a child learning ten spellings.

Would a qualified teacher even bother to do this?

I’m not, I can assure you but my ‘attitude’ does not need reprimands from your good self.

At any rate, what do primary schools actually do if kids don’t do homework?

I am a primary teacher and apart from reading and times tables homework is a waste of time. I hate it. I myself set aside 20 to 30 minutes for my own kids homework and after that time simply say that it was not completed within that time so we stopped.

I have seen some schools move to a system whereby children have a booklet per half term with challenges in which I much prefer. I know my own kids would prefer it, they'd get it out of the way then have the half term off it.

The only time my school tried to move away from homework, in happier pre academy days, the parents said they wanted to keep it.

I have an issue with homework, not with schools or teachers. I’m a teacher myself.